DNAinfo new York – Education advocates fed up with a lack of English, math and science in some Jewish parochial schools have taken their frustration to the street — or, more accurately, to a huge billboard overhanging the BQE.

Activists from New York’s Orthodox Jewish community say the Department of Education is failing to enforce legal minimum standards for basic education in some yeshivas.

The activists said that when they tried to buy ads in the city’s prominent Yiddish-language newspapers to bring attention to the shortfall in instruction, they were refused space. So they bought the billboard.

A DNAinfo New York investigation earlier this year uncovered huge scholastic gaps at many of Brooklyn’s most prominent yeshivas — schools that serve more than 84,000 students, a third as many as attend the borough’s public schools.

Educators continue to flout that law, and officials continue to ignore it, the investigation found.

The billboard includes a quote in Hebrew from Talmud, which says a person must teach his son a trade, said activist Naftuli Moster, whose organization YAFFED (Young Advocates for Fair Education) has spent more than a year lobbying city and state education officials to enforce “equivalency of instruction” rules in the city’s crowded Jewish schools.

“Obviously, nowadays yeshivas should take on that role as messengers of the parents,” Moster said.

At Williamsburg’s enormous United Talmudical Academy, male students receive fewer than six hours of general instruction a week for four years, while Crown Heights’ Oholei Torah doesn’t teach English or math at all, the investigation found.

“Our strategy has always been to get people from within the community to speak up and demand a change in the current education system, where 14-year-olds spend 14 hours a day without learning a single word of English, math, science, history or geography,” Moster said.

“All are subjects that schools are required to provide by law, and the government is required to ensure that schools do.”

Instead, the city DOE has ignored schools under its supervision that graduate students without Regents diplomas — many of them functionally illiterate in English, DNAinfo New York found.

The DOE did not immediately return calls for comment.

In parts of Borough Park and Williamsburg, it’s common to find young men who were born in New York, educated all their lives in Brooklyn and yet struggle to hold a simple conversation in English.

“Just a few weeks ago I tried putting ads in a few Jewish newspapers. They were rejected,” Moster said.

“It had some different wording, more text. It said, ‘Your son deserves better.'”

NY DAILY NEWS: A prominent Satmar Hasidic counselor was sentenced Tuesday to 103 years in prison for his repeated sexual abuse of a teenage girl during a three-year stretch of depravity.

Nechemya Weberman, 54, said nothing as the stunning jail term was handed down after his victim delivered a heart-wrenching statement inside a Brooklyn courtroom.

“I remember how I would look in the mirror,” the victim recounted. “I saw a girl who didn’t want to live in her own skin. A girl whose innocence was shattered at age 12.

“A sad girl who wanted to live a normal life, but instead was being victimized by a 50-year-old man who forced her to perform sickening acts again and again.”

Weberman, who served as a counselor for members of the ultra-Orthodox Satmar sect, was convicted last month on 59 counts of abuse for the repeated attacks that occurred from 2007 to 2010.
The victim said she was forced to perform oral sex and act out scenes from pornographic movies up to four times a week when she met with Weberman for counseling.

The victim, now 18, went to authorities in February 2011 to detail the abuse that began when she was just 12 years old.
Weberman, who did not speak at the sentencing, was sent to Rikers Island without bail after his conviction. He faced a maximum sentence of 117 years behind bars.

Brooklyn DA: KINGS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY CHARLES J. HYNES AND NYC HUMAN RESOURCES ADMINISTRATION COMMISSIONER ROBERT DOAR ANNOUNCE THE INDICTMENT OF A HUSBAND AND WIFE WHO STOLE OVER $100,000 IN FOOD STAMPS AND MEDICAID BENEFITS OVER SIX YEARS

COUPLE USED ALIASES TO HIDE PROPERTY, JEWELRY AND LUXURY CARS

Brooklyn, July 23, 2012 – Kings County District Attorney Charles J. Hynes and Human Resources Administration Commissioner Robert Doar today announced the indictment of Rivka Baror, 51, and her husband Avraham Baror, 64, for fraudulently collecting $108,715.57 in Medicaid and food-stamp benefits, from January 1, 2006 through June 30, 2012.

Charges against Mr. and Mrs. Baror include Welfare Fraud in the Second Degree, Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, and Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree. If convicted of the top count, the defendants face a maximum of 15 years in prison.

According to the defendants’ welfare application forms filed under the names Avraham Baror and Rivka Baror, during this period, the couple had minimal income and no assets, making them eligible to receive Medicaid and food-stamp benefits. Investigators from HRA and the District Attorney’s office uncovered documents showing the defendants used aliases to maintain bank accounts and purchase property, cars, and vacations.

District Attorney Hynes said, “These defendants carried out an elaborate scheme using aliases to buy property, travel, and live the high life for years, while stealing benefits designed to help truly needy and deserving individuals. Anyone who intentionally conceals information to obtain illegal benefits will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I would like to thank Commissioner Doar and HRA for their assistance in this investigation.”

According to the indictment, the couple claimed that they rented their home at 1349 East 2nd Street in Brooklyn from the landlord, Avraham Bachbuth for $1,100 a month. Avraham Bachbuth was the alleged alias used by Avraham Baror. According to property documents, Avraham Bachbuth purchased the property in April 2004, along with Rivka Yedidia. Yedidia is Mrs. Baror’s maiden name. Like her husband, Mrs. Baror allegedly used the name as an alias.

The indictment also alleges the defendants had several bank accounts under the names of Rivka Yedidia and Avraham Bachbuth and made average monthly cash deposits of $4,400. The couple had two safe deposit boxes at two separate banks. One contained $72,700 and €1,500. The other had jewelry and a foreign passport in Avraham Baror’s name.

Credit card account statements showed purchases at restaurants, movie theaters and stores including The Home Depot, Ikea and Victoria’s Secret. The investigation also uncovered NYS Department of Motor Vehicle records for a 2006, 2007 and 2008 BMW as well as a 2007 Lexus registered to Rivka Yedidia.

“This case is an egregious example of individuals who abuse New York City’s public benefit programs. It also represents a good instance in which our Finger Imaging System photos helped us weed out Food Stamp fraud,” said HRA Commissioner Robert Doar. “Every fraudulent dollar spent in this case, was a dollar taken away from New Yorkers truly in need of Food Stamps and Medicaid and it will not be tolerated. I would like to thank District Attorney Hynes and his team for their continuing support in the fight against public benefit fraud.”
HRA investigator Thomas Toth said he uncovered the couple’s fraud after he met Rivka Yedidia at the agency’s Manhattan office in 2010. He learned she had been coming to the office since 2009, working on behalf of individuals seeking HRA benefits. Yedidia would help them with paperwork, interviews and eligibility issues. After they met, Toth said Yedidia told him that she had paid off the mortgage on her home with the proceeds she received from a lawsuit.

Toth suspected Rivka Yedidia’s knowledge of the Medicaid program could be based on her own receipt of benefits. Toth found no records for welfare benefit recipients named Rivka Yedidia. A subsequent search of the records using the home address that Yedidia had given him revealed that an individual by the name of Rivka Baror lived there and had the same date of birth as Rivka Yedidia. Investigator Toth confirmed that Rivka Yedidia was a food-stamp and Medicaid benefit recipient under the name of Rivka Baror. Photos confirmed that the two individuals were in fact the same person.

The defendants are expected to be arraigned today at Kings County Supreme Court, Part 10, at 320 Jay Street.

An indictment is an accusatory instrument and not proof of a defendant’s guilt.

The case was investigated by Investigator Thomas Toth, of the Human Resources Administration Bureau of Fraud Investigations, Supervising Detective Investigator Clyde Augustine, and Detective Investigator Efrain Alvarado, both from the District Attorney’s Office.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Joel Greenwald of the Public Assistance Crimes Unit. Lauren Mack is the Chief of the Public Assistance Crimes Unit.

An admitted child molester stared at his teenage victim and professed his unending love for him Thursday in front of a shocked Brooklyn courtroom — but still got only two years behind bars.

******** CALA NOTE: Andrew Goodman is a former social worker and OHEL employee! ***********

The sickening display by Andrew Goodman, 27, came after one of his two victims begged Supreme Court Justice Martin Murphy not to go so easy on the serial pedophile, who’ll be back on the streets in two months after time served. Prosecutors also strongly objected to the plea agreement.

“Letting this man go is a very grave mistake,” the boy, now 17, said as his body trembled. “I have no doubt he’ll try to do the same thing to other children once he gets out.”

Goodman admitted to sexually abusing the youth and his brother for four years, starting when they were 12 and 13.

The victim described how his handsome neighbor earned his trust by buying him gifts, taking him to restaurants and alienating him from his parents before pressuring him into having sex.

“You are the worst thing that ever happened to me,” he told the defendant. “You are the devil disguised as a human.”

When it was Goodman’s turn to speak, he turned to the traumatized victim and told him “I love you” as the packed courtroom gasped and grunted in disbelief.

“I did and still do to this day love (you),” the predator added. “I fell in love with you and I wish I never allowed my sexual desires to get in the way of what I valued more, which is your friendship.”

None of that — or pleas by the boys’ mother and prosecutor Elizabeth Doerfler, who called the sentence “woefully low” — swayed the judge.

“You caused a lot of pain to all the complainants,” Judge Murphy told Goodman. “The statements that you made today are ill-advised to say the least.”

But without giving an explanation, he meted out the minimum allowable sentence that was agreed to after the former social worker pleaded to the entire 48-count indictment.

Prosecutors were seeking seven years in prison on each count, which would have added up to a de facto life sentence.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said the sentence “defies logic and is frankly inexplicable.”

Goodman will likely also have to register as a sex offender for life.

When he made bail after his 2010 arrest, concerned community members surreptitiously filmed numerous other boys leaving his Flatbush home in the early morning hours.

No additional cases emerged, but, after hearing about the surveillance, a different judge locked Goodman up in lieu of $1 million bail, meaning he’s already served almost his entire sentence.

The boy described in court “four long and torturous years” in which Goodman groomed him then made him feel “bad and unappreciative” if he didn’t succumb to the sexual come-ons.

As a result of the abuse, the teen said, he quit school, has no friends and is struggling to cope in social situations.

“This is a very dangerous man,” he told the judge. “Not only because of the crimes he committed, but also because he has no remorse.”

The victims’ mother and other advocates warned that the lenient penalty will discourage others from going through the hardship of filing complaints. Brooklyn prosecutors have railed against intimidation some accusers face when bringing abuse allegations in the Jewish community.

The Forward: After years criticizing Brooklyn’s district attorney, a group of advocates for victims of childhood sexual abuse has joined a new committee set up by Charles Hynes to collaborate on combating such abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community.

The advocates, who include longtime community activists Asher Lipner, Mark Appel and Joel Engelman, met with Hynes and several of his colleagues for about two hours on July 9.

Rhonnie Jaus, the head of Hynes’s sex crimes division, said the meeting was designed to open up lines of communication between the D.A.’s office and some of his staunchest critics.

“It was very positive,” Jaus said. “Everybody felt we made progress.”

Hynes has been assailed from all sides in recent months for his handling of abuse cases in the ultra-Orthodox community.

He has publicly distanced himself from the ultra-Orthodox umbrella organization Agudath Israel of America in the wake of claims that he tacitly accepted the group’s policy that members of the Orthodox community must first get permission from a rabbi before taking a suspected case of sexual abuse to secular authorities for investigation. In May, Hynes set up a task force to combat witness intimidation, which is said to be widespread in sexual abuse cases within some Brooklyn Orthodox communities.

Nevertheless, many observers still question several of Hynes’s policies, particularly his insistence on maintaining the anonymity of ultra-Orthodox perpetrators of abuse.

Engelman said the July 9 meeting focused not on policy but on working together to better serve victims and their families. “We haven’t had this opportunity before and we hope something can come of it,” he said.

Not that there is anything wrong with his civil work now, marrying the gays, but at least he is no longer making traumatic and tragic decisions impacting children’s lives through his stint in family court. Thank you to parents and advocates who worked tirelessly to sue this judge and file appeals until he was finally removed from family courts in Staten Island and Brooklyn.